This Estimate is for a net sum of £10,440,000, which represents an increase of almost £1 million on last year. That is not the whole picture. There is a Supplementary Estimate for nearly £2 million to be taken into account. That is quite a sum of money for this country as far as our defence commitments are concerned and it is not unreasonable to suggest that the time is more than ripe for an inquiry into the whole question of national defence expenditure. This is a plea I have made in the House on a number of occasions and, by the look of things, it is a plea I will be making for quite a while if I am here. When it comes to the expenditure of millions, this House does not seem to care how it is spent, but when it comes to social welfare or an extra halfcrown for the old and crippled there is a hullabaloo that the country cannot afford the expense.
Let me make it quite clear that in the remarks I make I am making no criticism whatever of the personnel in the Army. I think they are first-class. They are highly efficient, highly disciplined and we can be proud of them but we need something else. Because I criticise our defence expenditure, it should not be taken that I am critical of the men who compose what we describe as an army at the present time. On other occasions less conscientious Ministers sought to suggest that it was my intention to demean the members of the Defence Forces and, by side-stepping the issue in that way, remove any public criticism that might result from my remarks on defence expenditure.
I am not alone in this House in thinking that the time is ripe for an inquiry into defence expenditure. I remember Deputy Booth getting quite critical of our whole expenditure on defence last year. There are other Deputies like Deputy Booth who were in the Army during the emergency and if they are serious in making a contribution to this debate, they will tell the House of their worries with regard to the manner in which the money is being expended. We have no defence policy at the present time and yet we are spending nearly £12 million on defence per year.
After the last war, some kind of defence arrangement or defence plan was laid down in 1946 and 1947. At that time our Army authorities planned on the same basis as every other army, on the basis of what had taken place in the previous war. That is always the case. They never show any foresight or advanced ideas but base future activity on what has taken place in the past. That is inevitable and we cannot criticise the individuals involved.
At that time provision was made for a standing Army of approximately 12,000 men. The idea was that we would have a trained, professional standing Army of that size and if an emergency arose, we could easily expand it and use that highly trained force for the purpose of organising a much larger force in a short space of time. Our whole defence expenditure was based on such a standing Army and what it could be expanded into to meet certain eventualities.
What has happened since 1947? Is it not a fact that on not one single occasion in the 17 years which have elapsed have we had 12,000 men in the force? Is it not a fact that at present we are short by 6,000 men of that figure? Does that not pose the question that for 17 years we have been aiming at a standing Army of 12,000 men and in not one year have we come within 4,500 or 5,000 of that figure? Does that not make nonsense of the so-called plans for defence we are supposed to have prepared?
If ever there was a job in this country in which frustration is rife, it is the Army. From my own experience it was necessary, particularly for a young officer, to have a very vivid imagination especially when on what are known as manoeuvres. Instructions and detailed orders were given by very important brass hats to junior ranks and questions of strategy were posed. Questions on landings by enemy troops were also posed and various plans were prepared to defend positions or attack localities during the period of manoeuvres down the years and I am quite satisfied that what took place when I was in the Army is still going on.
I remember once having responsibility for laying down a large number of anti-tank mines. I was detailed to get about 100 or 150 tree stumps sawn specially and these were used as pretence antitank mines. Soldiers were busily drawing red crosses on top of these blocks of timber. At the same time, no real mines were available but we went through all this type of nonsense supposedly for the benefit of troop training. No mention was made of the thousands of pounds spent on petrol and oil in running around the country where the local people treated this as something like a show one might stage for the children at Christmas. Today in the Army they still talk about brigade manoeuvres and divisional manoeuvres and still pretend that a platoon is in fact a battalion for the purpose of defence or attack, while we know there are not more than five men even to represent a platoon in various exercises which are being undertaken but the same amount of time is being wasted and the same amount of material, and it is all based on what somebody read or heard about warfare in other days.
Let us be frank about this. This is the space age and whatever planning may have been appropriate in 1945, 1946, 1947, or 1948 regarding defence is certainly not appropriate today. If it was right to spend money on certain lines in those years, it is not unfair to suggest that we should now examine carefully whether it is desirable or wise to continue spending money on precisely the same lines in 1965. It is for that reason I ask for the setting up of a Select Committee of Dáil Éireann to examine the whole question of expenditure on defence. I can only give my views in the House; I do not suggest they are absolutely correct but I hold them and I have had no cause to change my views on this subject for years. I still see no rebuttal of my arguments.
The case has been made by other Ministers for Defence over the years that the matter of defence is not the responsibility of this House. The question of expenditure on defence is the responsibility of the House and there is no suggestion by me of squeezing out of the Army or the Department of Defence particulars about plans for defence. There is no suggestion of trying to find out whether the Army has a secret weapon which it could launch in case of attack and there is no such thing as allowing it to be accepted that the Army as such has a vested interest in existing on the present lines.
I think a Committee of this House, fully equipped to examine the whole question of how our money is being spent in conjunction with the defence chiefs, is called for. I am not accepting, and I do not think the public will accept, the nonsensical argument that defence is a matter for the Army and Government only. We know the taxpayer is going to pay and he knows perfectly well the Army as it stands today is make-believe. The taxpayer must be given the facts if he is to foot the bill; he is not prepared to continue being milked for make-believe or prestige purposes.
The present Minister has given his views on this before but I am afraid that it appears to me his attitude is that so long as things are all right and carry on from day to day, he will not stir himself. He has no intention of bringing a hornets' nest about his ears, no intention of standing up to the people who I believe are barring the way to progress and nothing will be done on the lines I suggest until there is a change of Government. In the meantime, it is no harm to have the views of the various Deputies on very important expenditure like this.
I shall say no more on the broad issue of defence but I come now to some of the details which I think need to be discussed. I believe the Minister has power to intervene on these if he is anxious to prove himself a man interested in the personnel of the Army rather than a man prepared to sit there having an easy time and getting away with doing as little as possible.
If we are to ask young men to join the Army, steps must be taken, apart altogether from the Select Committee to which I have referred, to modernise the Army and bring it up to date. In saying that, I have in mind the way in which the ordinary soldier is treated in the Army. There was an example of it here today. There was a question put by Deputy Ryan concerning the situation in Cathal Brugha Barracks. I was very glad that the Leader of the Labour Party should have intervened so ably. Without delaying the House too long, may I say that that case highlights the mentality of those responsible for the welfare of the soldier? Nobody gave a twopenny tinker's damn for the fact that a soldier's wife had not a plug in the house which would have enabled her to use an electric iron to iron the children's clothes. Not a member of the senior staff in the Army, not a member of the civilian branch which is supposed to be weeping tears over the welfare of the soldier, gave a damn when that barracks was being wired but all these gentlemen's homes are fully equipped with power points, one can be sure. The outlook of the senior members and the civilian branch is: "I'm all right, Jack. To hell with the private".
I do not think any Minister for Defence is worth his salt if he does not crush with his heel the heads of these people into the ground. That type of society should be gone long ago. It exists outside, but why should we allow it in the Army and then have the audacity to ask people to join and allege that they will be treated as human beings?
The mentality in the Army today is that a private soldier comes in on the same basis as those who were pressganged 100 to 150 years ago. There is the greatest distinction between the non-commissioned ranks, the private and the NCO and what goes for the officer personnel above. There is only one way to deal with that, that is, to give negotiating powers to the rank and file on the same basis as applies to the Civil Service. There is no good in a private soldier, or a group of soldiers, having a complaint to make having to go right up through the ranks to his commanding officer and then to the Minister for Defence. The document of complaints is dog-eared by the time it reaches the Minister. It is well known that it is only rarely that a private soldier will have the strength, the courage and the will to risk the unpopularity of going right through the ranks and causing a stir the whole way up. He knows it will be taken out of him afterwards. There is only one way to deal with this problem, that is, to set up an arbitration board that will deal with grievances of the non-commissioned personnel.
This is 1965. We all take credit and our breasts swell with pride for the achievements and the conduct of our troops in the Congo and in Cyprus but we do not translate that pride into thanks for the men who have caused it. We are still prepared to give them poor pay when they come home, poor conditions, to segregate their children with regard to educational facilities, to separate them from the officers as if they were two different types of people. There is an apartheid in the Army here as bad in its own way as the colour apartheid in South Africa. I see no attempt being made to change that position.
Today, in the year 1965, the practice still remains that a group of men with no legal training whatever can administer justice in the Army in the form of courtsmartial. What kind of power do we hand over to a group of individuals to decide that a man against whom it is alleged that he has been guilty of being absent for 28 days to see his wife or to earn a bit of money outside, can be sentenced by four or five persons who are having the time of Riley, to 56 or 106 days detention, can be deprived of his freedom?
A district justice who has legal training and ability and who in the normal course deals with offences against the law would think twice about taking the freedom of a man for 56 days or two months. It would have to be a pretty serious offence. There are two types of justice in this country, two types of court, one administered by the judiciary and the other administered on the basis of the pressgang system of a couple of hundred years ago.
I want to see the man who will state in this House that the Army is still entitled to courtmartial a soldier. I want to see how far that man has progressed into the twentieth century. I am not concerned with the practice in the British Army. In many respects it takes them a long time to learn. When starting our Army, we retained many features that have gone by the board in the British Army. We retained the worst aspects. Admittedly, we have changed the words of command. That will hoodwink the enemy, no doubt.
Let us face it. This is a volunteer Army. So we are told. There is no compulsory service in Ireland. On that basis every recruit joins the Army because (1) he thinks there will be good pay, (2) he likes the service, and (3) he is patriotic. His motives are a combination of those three, in any order of priority. The man who goes into that volunteer Army does so on the basis that it attracts him. The pay must be sufficient to attract him. Are men going into the Army? They are not. Definitely, the best are not going in. When I say that, I am not criticising the recruits but a pretty grim stage has been reached when educational courses have to be started within the Army because a number of recruits are not able to read or write properly.
We pretend that it is a volunteer Army and that its prestige is high but we want to get it on the cheap. My point—and it has taken me a while to come to it—is that if it is a volunteer Army, there should be standards of pay which will attract men and the conditions of service to which they are entitled. The fear of dismissal from the Army should be enough to prevent misdemeanours.
Take the position in the Garda Síochána as an example. Is there any suggestion of a man going absent for 28 days or for six weeks or two months? Supposing that should happen, does it not involve automatic dismissal? There is no such thing as a courtmartial in the Garda Síochána and a group of senior Garda Síochána officers saying: "We will courtmartial this guard; he is absent without leave." Why cannot the same type of discipline be operated in the Army in relation to the rank and file as operates in the Garda Síochána? If we say the Army is a volunteer Army, that it is a disciplined Army and if we are paying the men, then there should be no such thing as absence and no such thing as applying the sanctions of 100 years ago which were meant for an army which was recruited by compulsion and where life was hell on earth. The test of an army today is that there will be no such thing as men going absent and no serious offences. If serious offences do take place, the answer is not a courtmartial, but dismissal and, where necessary, a trial in the civil courts. That is one modernisation aim the Minister should tackle without delay. Bring the Army up to date and come into 1965.
There is one point which has been brought to my attention in the past few days by some of the non-commissioned men who have come back from Cyprus and I should like the Minister to do something about it. This is in connection with the local service allowance which is given to the group on service in Cyprus, a daily rate of 9/3, irrespective of rank. I want to bring to the Minister's notice section 4 of this directive. It says that if this group on active service is withdrawn by the Government after less than three months from the date of departure from Ireland, the allowance will be payable on the basis of 91 days to personnel who have had full service. Personnel who joined the contingent after the arrival of the main body in Cyprus or who are withdrawn for any reason, including medical, will be paid the allowance only for the actual period of service.
That means that this allowance of 9/3 will be paid even if the group is withdrawn from service before the end of the 91 days. If any others are sent back for disciplinary or other such reasons, they will not be paid the allowance. That is reasonable. However, if they are sent home on medical grounds, it is very unfair that the allowance should be stopped. A man is willing to volunteer for the 91 days and if, through no fault of his own, he becomes ill and is sent home, he will not get the allowance except for the period he was away. I intended to put a question to the Minister on this but I thought this was a better way to deal with it. I hope the Minister will change that. After all illness is something over which we have no control.
There is one other point I should like to mention. Other Deputies have dealt with it and I shall not detain the House. I notice on today's papers that the President congratulated the Army on its excellent turn-out for the Roger Casement funeral. I commend that but why not thank the Garda Síochána, who were equally involved? We love to praise the Army but we will not show our praise in a practical way by giving them something in return. High-sounding phrases about the wonderful turn-out and their efficiency are no use to a soldier unless you give him something to put in his pocket.
I was present at that funeral and I was present at the grave. I was very close to the pall-bearers and I have never seen a worse uniform in my life than those men were wearing who carried the remains. I thought it was dreadful: a long overcoat streeling down to their ankles, the old bull's wool uniform, a completely shapeless outfit. I looked at it again on television and it appeared even worse. I compared it with the beautiful cloaks worn by the senior officers. They looked like people from two different worlds. That may be Ireland in 1965 but I doubt very much if the man who was being honoured would have any great regard for that kind of difference between the top and the bottom.
The sum involved in this Estimate is a major sum as far as our economy is concerned. When I raised this matter today I raised it not in a sense of criticism but in order to ensure that the best possible return is got for the money spent. I am asking the Minister and the Government again to consider very seriously the idea which has been put forward here and supported by a number of Deputies, namely, that the time is ripe to have a calm, cool appraisal of this expenditure. I believe the way to do it is through a select committee of the House but whatever way it is done, it must be done.
